Single Page
Bigotry: Alive and well and messing up AlaskaWe know you know this, Alaska: you’re full of all different kinds of people. Your cities and more than a few of your small towns are extremely diverse, home to many different kinds of people who have decided to call you home. For the most part, your population is known for being laid back, tolerant even, when it comes to cultural differences (even ethical differences). But We The Concerned have seen a different side, especially lately, and we’re not so sure your residents deserve to be known as any more tolerant than any other group of people. We The Concerned have been called every racist, sexist and homophobic name in the book by every different color and creed of Alaskan, and we’ve experienced even more subtle forms of discrimination that almost seemed unintentional. (That’s bigotry for you; sometimes it doesn’t even know what it’s doing.) We know you’ve been doing your best over several millennia to soak, freeze, maul, isolate, devastate and deprive Alaskans into creating a functional spirit of harmony, but you seem to be falling short. We’re afraid that a failure to address widespread bigotry (no matter its form) within your borders has been the underlying reason so many of your problems have been so difficult to solve and why general social and economic progress has seemed so slow. We’ve been worried about the bigoted, 800-pound musk ox in the room since we were young, but our concern has increased dramatically over the last year or so. Sadly, there are many other examples, but a couple of recent ones stand out for us. An editorial by Stacey Deacon about housing discrimination she experienced, because she and her prospective roommate have a mix of Native American and Alaska Native heritage, got quite a bit of positive response from readers. A prospective landlord asked her a bunch of questions about her heritage and how it might affect her renting a place. Stuff like how often she returns to “the village” because the prospective landlord had “rented to Native families before and they have always left (him) high and dry.” Deacon didn’t end up getting the apartment (even after putting up utility deposits), and she wasn’t sure at first, but after some thought, she concluded she had been discriminated against. In June, an Anchorage resident was accidentally killed at the beginning of Anchorage PrideFest, the annual event put on by the LGBQT community and its allies. News outlets kept extremely close eyes on the reader comments beneath their reports of the tragedy and subsequent investigation, since most articles only featured expressions of shock, grief and solidarity, we're guessing the negative comments were deleted. Alaska Dispatch had to close its stories about the accident to online comments altogether because of the violently tasteless response. And, boy, do We The Concerned mean tasteless. Most of the ugly comments were religiously motivated, very similar to ones we heard in 2009 when Anchorage debated its anti-discrimination ordinance. Many expressed hope -- glee even -- that the man who died at PrideFest would wind up in hell. The issue of gay marriage was high on those bigots’ minds, too, even though there’s less consensus in the gay and gay-friendly community about marriage equality than most straight people seem to imagine. The questions asked of Stacey Deacon and other Alaska Natives looking for housing around the state, and the torrent of abuse directed toward the LGBQT community were instances of overt, intentional bigotry. But bigotry is usually much more subtle, and it lives in language, often unintentionally. And it’s everywhere. Last week, an officer of the Alaska Native Brotherhood took Alaska Dispatch to task via email, correctly, for a headline that came off as racist to him and others. It lead readers with the phrase “Native” to a story about one group of indigenous Alaskans who oppose oil drilling in the Chukchi Sea. He was right about the mistake, and Alaska Dispatch made a correction. Wow, an opinion piece about religious intolerance filled with religious intolerance. Scott's hatred of Christians would make Mohammed blush. Intolerance of Christians is far more accepted in our society than intolerance of gays, and Scott's piece is a perfect example. The Alaska Dispatch would NEVER allow space for someone to write such hatred about gays, blacks, muslims, jews, handicapped, natives, and on and on. Hatred of Christians though, front page. First off, great article Mr. Woodham. As long as it gets em’ talking – you’ve done your job! Well done. “Bigotry” it’s an ugly word. It’s also the same ugly word that comes to mind when I think of inappropriate questioning and making others feel like they are less than. It’s the same way I felt when I was being asked “how old are you? I see. How old is he?” “What village is your dad from?” Now I ask you – what relevance does that have to the current situation? None. Had the conversation went more like “Stacy, I know we did not talk about the rent and I understand your situation but we had planned on having the entire amount at the lease signing and now I am not going to rent to you because you do not have the entire amount.” That would have been more than justified. It would have dramatically changed the outcome. Instead the decision was based on “where is your mom from? And “oh, what is her ethnicity or heritage?” “Oh, OK. We’ll be in touch, then, and I’ll let you know.” Finally, the look that he gave me still hurts. If you, yourself have never been discriminated against – you wouldn’t even begin to understand. This emotional tie that I now have with racism is going to stay with me for a while because racism hurts. I don’t know how else I can convey that more clearly. Racism in Alaska has no relevance and we need to stop treating each other like we are different because really we are all the same. I have one comment, and it is thus. One of the most important things for us to do is to stand in a circle and sing Kumbaya. Seriously. The Deacon case is a great example of the difficulties a culture and economy face when racism is alive and well. What a mess that is. The landlord had legitimate concerns about her ability to pay rent. Maybe he carried some racist baggage in his conscious of subconscious; I'll admit that I do. It's hard to not categorize people. But it also seemed like he tried pretty well to be objective about the situation. So, what's the upshot. Well, because we, in general, haven't whipped this racism thing, that landlord gets stuck in a very difficult spot where his motivations and judgment are disparaged as "overt, intentional bigotry." That's not fair, and contributes to divisiveness. However, this issue wouldn't even come up if it was an Italian-American he wouldn't rent to. We've pretty well whipped our anti-Italian racism, and whipping it has served us well. As long as people are bigots in their brain towards natives, homosexuals or anybody else, we'll tie ourselves in knots trying to disconnect how we treat people and how we allow people to be treated from our innate bigotry against them. The only solution that works well, is to stop hating. Stop convincing yourself that your race is so much better than my race and vice versa. Stop convincing yourself that your religion is so much better than my religion, your beer is so much better than my wine. Etc. Hold hands and sign Kumbaya. All the other solutions are contrived, create economic distortions and are addressed only inadequately. As long as we insist on holding on to our hate, nurturing it like a campfire made of wet wood, we will continue to choke on it's smoke. A bigot is defined by Webster's as: : a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance. The writer here clearly qualifies on both scores. The intolerance is palpable for Alaskans in general and especially for those Alaskans with religious convictions. Well, gee, Scott, if you can't take the heat, get out of the frying pan and go home. We don't need the high minded, arrogant judgment. Life is difficult, it is hard, Alaska is a female dog that will kill you if she can. Ask anyone who has ever lived in the Bush about what it means when you disrespect Alaska. Same for her people. We are what we are and no different than any other. With all due respect to The Concerned, bigotry is established whenever we distinguish ourselves as ourselves, unique and different than others. It then travels up the food chain of logic, as we sort our unique self into various "categories"--- I'm black, white, straight, gay, Democrat, Republican, American, Armenian and so on. If you want to address this in a meaningful way, you must question the underlying premise---Am "I" different from everyone else? Does sharing an opinion or a set of physical traits make "me" part of a group? From the cradle, ALL humans are taught to focus on the DIFFERENCES among things and people, instead of the SIMILARITIES. It makes it easier for us to classify things and think in deductive reasoning patterns, but at the same time, it creates a "forest for the trees" blindness that is at the core of bigotry. If we asked our children to search for the similarities FIRST and only later asked them to cope with differences, we would be taking a real stab at the problem. From our earliest days we would be trained to see the similarity FIRST. I can guarantee that a stranded rich white person out in the Bush in a snow storm is profoundly grateful to find a family of Alaska Natives in a warm little shack willing to take him in out of the cold and feed him. In an emergency, it's amazing to see how humans band together against the bad circumstance, the natural disaster, the oppressive government. Suddenly, all those barriers come down and we experience a "defining moment" when we glimpse our SIMILARITY and it prompts us to act with true compassion. My little granddaughter was playing with blocks of different shapes and colors, marveling at them---red star, blue cube, yellow triangle, and what I asked her to notice FIRST is that they are all shapes. You can take it from here. Very thought-provoking piece. Most people know bigotry and racism aren't acceptable, and those who hold those die-hard attitudes usually submerge them below visibility. But we need to keep working to improve and we need to acknowledge progress that has been made. Overt racism is largely gone and replaced with a high degree of acceptance and respect. Still, our problems have roots in the past and we shouldn't be afraid to reference them. There's still plenty of room for improvement. Kumak's comment about being under federal Voter Rights Act review along with Southern States is something few Alaskans know about. Alaska had a literacy test that discriminated against Alaska's Native peoples. Go back further, when the U.S. took over Alaska, and note how the churches divided up Alaska to "civilize" the native peoples often in paternalistic and racist ways that operated in those times. The U.S. Army attempted to deprive upriver Ahtna people of fish by fencing off the mouth of the Copper River at the turn of the 20th century. Today twice as many Alaska Native peoples are in jail than their natural populations, but are these populations more criminal than any other ethic groups? No. Do these prisoners have a higher conviction rate in a justice system that sometimes works unfairly? Some evidence suggests the answer is yes. Maybe there are basic animalistic behaviors wired into our brains somewhere that makes people suspect that "them" are different, and therefore not quite as good as "us." Religious bigotry has spilled tons of blood across many centuries and it continues today, even though most of the religious tenets abhor such beliefs or violence. It's easy to ignore those we don't understand. It's easy to be intolerant more than questioning our own feelings and attitudes. But questioning, knowing and understanding are healthy things that we can all strive to do better. Keep asking questions and don't fear self-examination. Don't tolerate intolerance. Bigotry is alive and well in Alaska, as it is everywhere. But those of us who have lived in other states know that Alaska is one of the more warmhearted and tolerant places in the country. It would not be fair to single out Alaska as becoming more intolerant. Alaska is unfortunately just becoming more like the rest of the country, which is increasingly irritable, less patient, less polite, and less modest. The causes of this phenomenon are often debated. Personally, I believe it is because people have become spoiled and entitled through consumer culture, segmented by the mass media into ideological camps, and polarized by group politics that push some narrow agenda over all other issues facing the nation. As a result of these factors, we think we're better than everyone else and we cannot communicate with other people as individuals. As a nation, we lack respect. Instead of a complain driven article that put people out(as you can note by the responses), do some more articles on local people, towns and what they do...Most Natives in Alaska love to hunt..do articles on their whale hunts. It is their thing...among many others. I think the Native Games have some fantastic shows of athletic ability, particularity with their unique high kicks. You could report much more on them...(Yes, I know you have, but the reports were limited in scope.) Leave lecturing behind and act out the world as you want to see it.... This editorial's putting people out because bigotry isn't fun to think about and most people would rather die than examine their own role in history's long misery ballad. There is a reason Alaska (and most of the southern states) are still subject to the federal Voting Rights Act. That's just one measure, but enough for me to say that "We the Concerned" are right. Sometimes I fumble around for the right words to describe a person for fear of insulting or hurting someone. Is she black or African American? I'm not white but how would you describe me standing with a group of my friends who are Ahtna - I'm the blond by the way. In my heart, I am trying to do the right thing. It's a different matter when an acquaintance once described his daughter's fiance as a "wet back". That's clearly a bigoted statement and suggests that the person who would utter the phrase is a bigot. I try not to judge people because that is far above my pay grade yet when confronted with these hateful statements I feel sick and like I should do something. Is it OK for people to be bigots in the privacy of their own home? In America, probably so. In public, where do we draw the line between free speech and vulgarity, racism, bigotry, etc.? There is a line and I think it's up to us individually to draw the line in the sand. When speech crosses over to violence our society has recognized the difference between a crime motivated by hatred based in bigotry and one motivated by greed. This is such a difficult discussion to have but one we really do need to have. But I think we also need to cut ourselves some slack. It is human nature to want to describe who and what we see and to organize information in our brains. How we label these observations is the critical thing. And we need to recognize that within groups there are individuals and painting any topic with too broad a brush is a dangerous thing. When I was a cheechako over 20 years ago I was treated differently and it was probably a good thing. Who knew you needed to carry all that crap in your truck during the winter? But the people who treated me differently did so with care and love and a fair amount of teasing. There's nothing wrong with being different or making a decision to treat someone differently. It's when we do so because of hate, ignorance or fear that we cross the line. I find it interesting that the author of this article failed to include that Deacon's prospective landlord only began to question her when she failed to produce the deposit and first and last month’s rent on time. Her recounting the questions she was asked and how they were asked led me to believe that he was concerned that she would believe that traveling back and forth to her village was of a higher priority than paying her monthly rent. His concern seems somewhat justified since that was the reason given him for her failing to produce the required deposit and first and last. (Not a very good way to instill faith in any landlord). Having been informed that this was the reason for her lateness he endeavored to determine if it was likely that this might happen again and was apparently convinced that it might and declined to enter into a rental contract with her because of this. If his choice had been based only on race that would have been bigotry but, in this instance his questions of her and his ultimate choice are based on her actions (late on first and last and deposit) he questioned her as to the reason why she had been late and further questioned her to determine if this was likely to happen again and then declined to enter into contract with her based on her responses and his past experiences. I would also like to point out that I am a member of a federally recognized tribe in Alaska and have seen bigotry and racism exhibited in our society on many levels. One of the things that bothers me the most is that after being taught by my elders that bigotry and racism had caused much pain to the natives of Alaska and after listening to many firsthand accounts of what life for them had been like here in the 1930’s and 1940’s I came to believe that having this cultural experience had taught our people that racism and bigotry were not good qualities and not something that we would ever support or condone. I was greatly disappointed later in life when I found that a law had been enacted that allowed for “Native preference” in employment for native corporations and tribal entities. Interesting how the article promised so much at first, then failed to deliver anything other than glossing over RACISM directed at Alaska Natives. Giving RACISM a different name...bigotry....does nothing but marginalize an all too prevalent truth about Alaska. You seem to agree with "The Concerned" but are trying your damnest not to. Racism is one kind of bigotry, based on race of course. I don't think the intent was to deal with specifics, but the attitude overall. Beadervao, perhaps you'll contribute an opinion piece of your own that focuses on those aspects of discrimination/racism/bigotry that you'd like to see addressed. I think there's opportunity to do that and get feedback from the broader spectrum of Dispatch readers out there who might concur or disagree with your views. Opining on particulars is one thing, but subsequent discussion is a wide-open forum inviting abundant dissent or agreement. Seems a shame when people are victims of hate when all they have done is chosen to love someone. Some may argue nitpicking, others may argue freedom to express themselves, but the lowdown on bigotry is that it's insidious and grows if not checked. We see it so often, we forget the many nuances of the offense. A right-on piece for the day. is it bigotry to think something is wrong? is it bigotry to think that a perversion of normal conduct is wrong? Just because someone wants to engage in certain activities does not mean that we have to approve of such conduct. If a man wants to have sex with an animal, we call that beastiality, is that bigotry? Personally I don't care what people do in the privacy of their bedrooms, but I reserve the right to disapprove of their public conduct. Also, it is absolute nonsense that gays don't have the same rights I do. They can marry any person of the opposite sex that will have them. Same as me. History teaches us not to make the same mistakes over and over again. Yet you would have landlords and employers ignore their previous experience with certain groups of people. That may be politically correct but it is also stupid. Chasm, I agree with you that people have the right to think things are wrong and to disapprove of that conduct. The problem is when they extend that disapproval to the person themselves, and to other people who look the same (because everybody in that group is probably the same) and it edges over into harassment and discrimination and personal attacks. There are a number of atheist organizations promoting themselves nationwide right now, for instance, and while they certainly have the right to think people who are sincerely religious are wrong, and to disapprove of their conduct, it would be bigoted for them to harass or discriminate against or personally attack religious people on the assumption that they are all exactly like, say, Fred Phelps, or Papa Pilgrim, or Tony Alamo. In order to be fair and avoid bigotry, they must remember that their previous experience with individual religious people doesn't define the whole group. |
Comments